2022 State XC Finals – 11-5-22

Mild Temps, high winds

The team finished the season on a high note.  By the afternoon when we ran winds were blowing at 20 mph with gusts in the 30s.  The boy went into the race projected to finish 18^th and turned in a good finals performance to surpass that to finish 13^th with 372 points.  The wind was right in the athletes face for the first ¾ of a mile and the last 600 meters.  We hoped to try to get out on the back end of the front group and let them break the wind for us.  Junior Sean Pettis did a great job of executing that plan.  I thought he had a decent shot of finishing in the top 45 or so, but Sean had other plans.  His goal was All-State, top 30.  At the 1.5 mile mark he was in 34^th, just before the 2 mile 30^th, and just after the 2 mile 29^th with a pack of about 6 other guys.  I didn’t see the final 1000, Sean said he passed about 4 guys, but also got passed by a few so we had to wait to see the posted results to learn that he was indeed All-State in 29^th place running a PR.  Sean was only 1 of 6 boys to run a PR in our race.  That got me to wondering how we as a team compared to the rest of the field based on our season records so, tech guru Gary Springstead wrote a program to compare how far off their season records the field averaged and got 38 seconds.  The field averaged 38 seconds slower than their season records today.  In comparison, almost all of our athletes beat that average.

Sean – 11 seconds faster than season record

Johnny Christensen (Jr) -  2 seconds slower than season record

Carter Sherman (So) – 21 seconds slower than season record

Henrik Quist (Sr) – 23 seconds slower than season record

Issac Romero (Fr) – 18 seconds slower than season record

Cole Lowery (So) – 15 seconds slower than season record

6 out of our seven beat the field average under tough conditions to run in.  Johnny, Carter, and Issac all turned in great stretch runs in the last 200 meters to pick up several places each.  This was a good showing and great experience for a young group that is excited to improve next season.

Linnea Paige (Fr) represented the girls team in her first State Championship race.  She got out well and battled back a forth from 40^th to 50^th in the middle section of the race.  I was pretty impressed with her ability to get out, lose some places and be able to battle back to pick them up.  Linnea was also only 7 seconds slower than her season record.  She is another young athlete who gained great experience running in tough conditions today, and we are excited to see where she goes from here.

Full results can be found here - https://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/meet/207977/results

Thank you for following along with us this season.

Coach